March 2011's webinar ask you to open up your digital toolboxes and share with us your favorite new links and resources for spring 2011. Are you using any new iPad/iPod apps? Web 2.0 tools? Gadgets? We would love to hear about it. Our special guests, Diane Sidoroff of Austin, TX, and Tuanua Swartz of Lakin, KS will be sharing some of their favorite Web 2.0 Tools and iPad Apps for us, but we are interested in your resources, as well.

Share your resources between March 12 and April 18th to be entered into a drawing for an iPod 4 Touch. The drawing will end on April 18th, but this thread will remain active after the incentive period. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, we can only ship prizes within the U.S.,but the contents of this discussion are applicable to every Intel Teach educator worldwide, so please help build a solid set of tips and resources for everyone. We look forward to your contributions.

Currently, I am the Migrant Liaison and Technology Specialist at Sublette Elementry, USD 374. I recently presented at the MACE conference in Manhattan, Kansas over the use of iPads in the Classroom. I am honored and excite to present at this webinar a few of the applications for the iPad to use with students in the classroom. I am equally thrilled to hear about more iPad applications that I can use in the classroom!

I use the iSeismograph app with my 7th grade students. Our state core requires students understand how scientists learn about Earth's layers. This app allows students to see seismographs similar to the expensive ones used by earthquake study centers. Students enjoy trying to jump on the floor and model an earthquake. From this app they can see how the seismograph works instead of just reading about it in a textbook.

I'm sure this app might be useful for content besides science. I'm curious how others might be using this app with their classes.

As much as I've watched the news and thought about Japan's situation right now, I did not think about using this app to help students understand the most recent earthquake. I just watched the news say the magnitude has been upgraded from 8.9 to 9.0. This is a HUGE earthquake. I think it could be fun to have students see how close to a 9.0 they can create by jumping individually or as a group. I'm guessing this could lead into an excellent Social Studies discussion. It might also lead into an opportunity for students to help obtain and send support to suffering people far away.

I use the free iseismometer. One way we use this is kind of like biofeedback. I have the students hold the iPad before they have to compete in one of our math tournament's or speak in front of the class. The goal is to be as steady as possible; deep breathing, relaxation, etc. to tame the seismic waves. Helps some of the students.

I'd have to say my most valuable tool these days is my Elluminate account. Since my focus is professional development with teachers around the state, and travel is so limited due to weather, gas, etc. I can still reach them via webianrs. I also hold my monthly meetings with my Technology Integration Specialists-in-training using it. Of course, all these other Web 2.0 tools that you are all sharing here will be some of my new content for my next meeting!

Hi! I am Diane Sidoroff, Educational Technology Facilitator with Austin ISD in Texas! I will be presenting on a Web 2.0 tool called Storybird and a great tech tool, the Livescribe Echo smartpen. I hope you will stop by and see the great things that can be done in the classroom. I will discuss how to use Storybird to enhance the writing your students do and how the smartpen can help out with mathematics.

A group of our teachers just started using Storybird as well with 4th graders. My understanding is that the students don't need emails but you need to put the students in individually which can be time consuming. Pictures are great, I just wish there was a capacity for students to use their own pictures.

Has anyone used http://www.mission-us.org/ which is a revolutionary war game produced by Channel 13 and it looks like you take on the role of one of the characters during that time period and interact with history. It looked interesting but don't know anyone who has used it.

Vanessa do you need a straight edge cutting tool to make sure the large poster is looks nice when you are done? I envision my students putting pieces together with the white edges showing of each printed paper. If a straight edge cutting tool is needed, what would be best to use with 7th grade and younger students?

Guess I'll have to see how I can use it to create a smaller poster for my classroom. I'm also nervous about the quantity of ink that might be used to create such large posters. I'm also thinking how excited students might be if they can create their own large poster, printed and posted in the hallway outside my room.

The list of digital tools is long and diverse! Currently, I am eagerly exploring mindmeister and the thinking space app on my android device. I love being able to create thinking maps on my device! My students and I also enjoy using edu.glogster.com to share our ideas and research. My students really enjoy being able to give comments on their classmate's projects.

Brent do you know if MindMeister can be added as a "Google App"? My district recently began the change to using Google Apps. I was thrilled when we were able to add Aviary as a "Google App." If it is possible to add MindMeister as an app, it would show up on student home pages when they access their apps!

Yes, mindmeister can be added as a google app. I currently have as part of my igoogle page. I have my igoogle page loaded with all the apps I love in my classroom - docs, mindmeister, calendar, countdown, news, and facts. We also picnik, picasa, and panoramio. I keep adding gadgets and apps to that homepage as I find them. My kids see that page daily. They now look for the facts and the countdown is always running towards our next special event.

I have been working with the 6th grade ELA team on their mythology unit. The students had to learn about the characters and their relationships. They created facebook pages aka greekbook pages on their assigned character. So if they had Zeus then they created a friend list, relationship status, profile info etc. They used a fake convo editor to create a discussion amongst his friends. The template was in Word and looked like a facebook page. It was so cool and the students learned so much. It was a lot of work to get the page designed and the teachers worked hard on it. Then I just saw this on twitter - http://www.classtools.net/fb/home/page

A Fakebook creator - so if you are looking for a cool tool to create something similar ...maybe for historical figures then this is your tool! Any other ideas of how this could be used in the classroom?

The Smackdown is my most favorite thing at ISTE. It is a battle of online tools...which is the best! I will not be going this year but I can still be a part of the smackdown session. They will be putting on a Family Fued game (boys vs girls). I must say that looking at the teams - the girls Rock!

A great website I've begun to use is Voki. At first I used it as a source for solving math problems, but today I used it to do some sequencing which was great. The kids love it so much they are thinking about other ways of using it. One student suggested we use the Voki to create our How to books. It is really easy for students to use and it helps them be creative.

I was unaware of Phillip Martin's site before this. His clipart is INCREDIBLE! I have reviewed several possible images to use with my students and they are very appropriate for Middle School. I appreciate Phillip's generous copyright use for teachers. I plan on sharing the site with students who need clipart for projects as well as teachers I work with.

I'll be reminding my students that they should also copy the URL when downloading an image. We've practiced pasting these URLs on the same page as images are put. I think that is a minor "credit" to give Phillip for his work.

Thanks for sharing this website. I am always trying to get clipart to go with my students Show-N-tell if I am not able to draw the picture myself. (gotta love Kinder, they think I can draw, little do they know.) I also use clipart to help enrich their vocabulary words.

Just like our guest speaker Taunua (sorry if I misspelled her name), I found an app called Rocketmath. It's a lot of fun for the students and it encourages them to keep their rocket in space and you can design it the way you want to. Students can earn "cash" for each correct answer- for their rocket ship. You can pick levels to match your students needs.

I have learned so much from all of these posts and look forward to checking these out and have my students create and explore. I have recently started working with the App -- eclicker -- from Big Nerd Ranch guys. It is for your iPad/iPhone/iTouch

The host app is $9.99 and the client is free -- to be used on iPhones/iTouches.

Basically what you do is create question sets -- you can even draw images. You save them. Next your students log on via iTouch/iPhone or laptops (will give you a http address), they will log in, hen you will post the questions to them -- they have a certain amount of time to respond to the question at hand. The answers will be posted to you, you can see how they rank and it will be graphed too!

My students loved it! You can do this individually if you have enough devices that can get online or you can do it in teams too. We have tried it both ways and both are highly effective, fun and keep students engaged.

Some ideas we have used it for: math vocab. review, reviewing for a test, informal assessment, interesting questions of the day, students can create questions for others to answer too.

I had intended on adding to the discussion about "gaming in the classroom." I recently joined edWeb and am collaborating with other professionals about how scores are improving in Math with students who are playing math games on the computer. Game based learning is not intended to replace traditional teaching but enhances it tremendously. I encourage math teachers to join in on these discussions, watch videos they provide and see for yourself how it could work in your classroom. The next webinar is on April 26th 4pm Eastern; Topic: Death of Textbooks, Emergence of Games.

This spring, I began to use my ipods and ipad daily during my literacy centers block in my 1st grade classroom. Before, I was using them for audio books, for children to watch movies to see directions at centers, to read eBooks that they created or ones that I downloaded, to use various apps, etc..

Recently, I just found some apps with leveled readers to correspond to my guided reading lessons. I have used Reading A to Z and Learning A to Z before in the past, but now I can download those same books instead of having to print them out and bind them or pay for an annual subscription for students to access them online. You can purchase leveled library sets or download some free ones. They have really made a difference with my guided reading groups and helped keep my students engaged and motivated while working independently or in small groups on their own levels.

My students and I take pictures and videos of class projects, activities, and field trips. We use a digital camera or our new iPod touch. We load them on Shutterfly.com on a weekly basis. I have created a free share site for my parents and students to view. This gives my parents an opportunity to see their children in action. I just discovered a Shutterfly iPad app. that loads all the photo albums that I have created. In the classroom, the students can view the photo albums on the iPad. You can also show it as a slide show. I began to look at some of our field trip albums and want to use them as a reflection lesson with the students. I also want to show them to students who were not able to attend some of the field trip due to illness.

I have found a new ipad app. I am always looking for new apps to enhance my student's reading skills. I found a fun and challenging app for my middle school students. This is a vocabulary game in the format of a game show. It is called Who's the Smartest? Vocabulary. Students answer questions from easy to hard, As students correctly answer the questins they recieve points in the form of money. The students spin a wheel and answer questions that are related to parts of speech, word usage, synonyms/antonyms, definitons, and a few other categories The music is a bit boring, but the words are challenging and it is fun for the kids to get points in the form of money.